Bildungsroman
by Krimz
Summary: Temperance Brennan has a confrontation in the Burtonsville High janitorial shed. An extremely brief snapshot. Rated for strong language.


_Bildungsroman: a genre of literature that denotes the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots a quest story, has been described as both "an apprenticeship to life" and a "search for meaningful existence within society."_

Like beasts they circled each other, he with his fingers dug into his belt loops, she with her hands opened, clenched, opened, clenched at chest level, gesturing and emphasizing wildly while her teeth bared and her tongue spat words into his cocky face. Her movements were so feral but her voice so delicate the boy had to lean ever closer, ever closer into her just to hear her.

"I'll do it," she whispered, and he could somehow taste the blood she tasted as her tongue darted to the slit down her bottom lip. "Uh-huh, oh, I will." He snorted and looked away because he was becoming uncomfortable, afraid, and she took it as more derisiveness. Bad for him. "You think I won't, huh?" she growled, freezing the herding choreography they'd fallen into. "You don't think I have it in me?"

"No," he said steadily, more steadily than he felt when her eyes suddenly seemed red, not blue, in his adrenaline-addled vision. "No, I don't."

"I will, and I'll do it before you even graduate, you fucking prick." He laughed again, cut short by her sudden slap to his cheek. "I'll get a Masters while you're earning a gas attendant salary to pay for Community," she continued as if she'd never struck him at all. It wasn't hard; he could barely feel it any longer, but he wouldn't wish it on himself again. "And then, hey, I'll get a PhD, too, but maybe you'll have a bachelor's in sports management by then, right, Banner? Probably, huh?"

This time, Banner did laugh and meant it and it really rankled her something wicked. "A PhD? Temperance Brennan, PhD? Fucking unlikely. Foster kids ain't got shit money for that." He just about caught his tongue in time before he realized what kind of war he was igniting. Now she looked unexpectedly nonplussed, a rollercoaster.

"Three."

Was she counting down the seconds before she ripped out a scalpel and murdered him cold? His throat cut and meekly, he said, "Three?"

"Three doctorates."

He rolled his eyes, stance now relaxed. "You're kidding. In what, huh, Morticia?" He kicked the forgotten skinned rabbit until it flipped, its one eye fogged and staring, and Banner's stomach dropped when he saw her staring back at it, thoughtfully. What a creep. "Dead stuff?" he ventured with venom.

He watched her shoulders rise and fall for a full minute, a full minute for just one breath. Then she locked his eyes with hers once more. "Yes. Dead stuff." Those blues didn't move from his face as she slowly took a step and sunk to her knee before the dead rabbit. As she admired it, a strand of stringy brown hair fell from behind her ear. One hand, one ungloved hand snaked out under her too-big, ratty sweatshirt to stick it back in place. Then she slipped the same hand beneath the dead body almost reverently and lifted it to her face. Banner swore the dead thing's little bloody nose twitched. "No one cares enough about them, you know?" She put it nearly against her cheek almost affectionately, its dead face now looking at him. "Somehow, the things that are out of sight are forgotten. But why? Mr. Buxley says it shouldn't be so hard to remember that dead things were just as filled with the 'spark of life,' as he calls it, as we are right now. It's all there. I can tell you the last thing this rabbit ate before it bounced off a car bumper. It was alive before, and cute, too." She laid it back down and stood straight again. "But I guess it's gross. Do you think it's gross, Banner?"

Banner swallowed past the creepy knot in his throat. "Duh," croaked out over the stickiness.

"Yeah. Road kill. Dead bodies, decomposition. Rats, skeletons, bugs. People hate it. Don't want to see it even though it holds so many secrets that we're not allowed to see during life. But it's misunderstood, death, mislabeled because of a couple repellant traits. Yeah, well, guess what, Banner? Me too."

"You're ridiculous."

And that's when Temperance Brennan nailed him in the face, knocking him out cold in the Burtonsville High janitorial shed.


End file.
